Emotions

News about Emotions, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Jul. 28, 2015

David Brooks Op-Ed column examines emotion of gratitude, and way that some people have of maintaining grateful disposition; suggests that emotion is particularly useful in capitalistic meritocracy, as it emphasizes degree to which each person is perpetually dependent on others. MORE

Jul. 21, 2015

Growing number of musicologists are studying way in which musical technique affects emotion of listeners, using optical motion capture technique employed by animation industry; some studies have focused on difference between 19th-century and modern playing techniques. MORE

May. 24, 2015

Gray Matter column by Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner describes their research on why humans experience awe, which will be published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; reports that they found that feelings of awe spur collaborative action and strengthens communities. MORE

Apr. 26, 2015

Op-Ed article by Vivian Gornick describes joyous intensity of feelings that filled the void created by giving up daydreaming. MORE

Apr. 20, 2015

Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is a popular pain reliever, but it may also blunt emotions, both positive and negative, a new study shows. MORE

Apr. 12, 2015

Mar. 1, 2015

Op-Ed article by psychiatrist Julie Holland warns that many women are turning to psychiatric medication because of society stigmatizing women's emotionality, which is sign of health, not disease; calls for an end to labeling sadness and anxiety as symptoms of disorder, rather than appreciating them as part of healthy biology. MORE

Feb. 24, 2015

Media analysis published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by the University of Vermont and the Mitre Corporation finds that news articles, books, websites, social media posts and other forms of communication contain more positive words than negative words; finding confirms Pollyanna theory of positivity bias and upends perception of negative news dominance. MORE

Feb. 22, 2015

Ana Brenda Contreras, veteran of Mexican soap operas, offers tips for how to cry on command. MORE

Dec. 21, 2014

Gray Matter column by Prof Keith Oatley and researcher Maja Djikic describes studies they have conducted suggesting that artistic literature can transform readers' personality traits and emotions, allowing them to start thinking about themselves, and their lives, in new ways. MORE

Nov. 23, 2014

Gray Matter column by psychology Prof David DeSteno argues that best defense against manipulative holiday marketing lies in essential message of Thanksgiving Day itself; says gratitude, an emotion that stresses long-term value of short-term sacrifice and deferred pleasure, can be key to avoiding impulse buying. MORE

Aug. 28, 2014

Research published in journal Nature suggests that memories and feelings associated with them are not permanently connected; using a technique in which light is used to switch neurons on and off, neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology appear to have unlocked some secrets about how the brain attaches emotions to memories and how emotions can be adjusted. MORE

Jul. 1, 2014

Op-Ed article by author Jaron Lanier expresses concern about a University of California, San Francisco, Cornell and Facebook study finding that social networks can manipulate the emotions of users by tweaking their news feeds; argues that it is troubling that participants were not openly notified of their involvement in study, calling for a modernized process of informed content MORE

Jun. 30, 2014

Facebook faces widespread backlash after revealing that it manipulated news feeds of over half a million users to change the number of positive and negative posts they saw; experiment was part of psychological study to examine how emotions can be spread on social media. MORE

May. 4, 2014

Researchers are working toward equipping computers with sensors that can let them interpret users’ emotions and respond accordingly. MORE

Mar. 2, 2014

Gray Matter column by Prof Lisa Feldman Barrett, director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Library, describes research the lab has published in journal Emotion that suggests that human facial expressions are not universally understood; contends findings challenge theory that facial movements might be evolved behaviors for expressing emotion. MORE

Dec. 1, 2013

Anne Eisenberg Novelties column; companies are developing software to analyze subtle, fleeting facial expressions and to get at the emotions behind them; technology is already finding use in media--to test ads, movie trailers and television shows; face-reading software has much potential, but it also raises many questions about privacy and surveillance. MORE

Oct. 13, 2013

Natasha Singer Technophoria column; new techniques in computational voice analysis are promising to help machines identify emotions behind a person’s voice; developers are offering nascent software as deeper approach for call centers and other customer services that seek to read and respond to consumers' emotions in real time. MORE

Oct. 3, 2013

A new study found that reading literary fiction leads to better performance on tests of empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence. MORE

Sep. 22, 2013

Gray Matter column by postdoctoral fellow Ai Kawakami describes her research into music and emotions, particularly sad music, which was published in journal Frontiers in Psychology; calls for more research about vicarious emotions, like when one weeps listening to sad music. MORE

Sep. 15, 2013

Jennifer Kahn article focuses on social-emotional learning, educational strategy based on idea that emotional skills are crucial to academic performance; describes how these specific, noncognitive skills are being taught in classrooms. MORE

Jun. 2, 2013

Jenna Wortham Bits column contends that emotional artificial intelligence, also called affective computing, may be on its way; says devices and apps may one day respond when we are frustrated, bored or too busy to be interrupted; points out, however, they would also be intrusive in ways that cannot be fathomed today. MORE

Mar. 26, 2013

Mar. 26, 2013

Entrepreneurs who have followed personal passion in making career changes describe joys, hardships and financial pitfalls of pursuing their dreams. MORE

Mar. 25, 2013

Using Google’s enormous Ngram database, researchers at three British universities tracked the use of “mood” words over the 20th century. MORE

Nov. 6, 2012

David Brooks Op-Ed column highlights results of intensive Grant Study at Harvard University, which tracked 268 students from 1938 to present, underscoring the power of relationships in people's lives; observes that one of biggest findings is that childhood does not totally determine a life, and that many of men became more emotionally attuned as they aged. MORE

Oct. 16, 2012

Efforts are under way to expand affective programming, a way of teaching computers to recognize emotions by analyzing facial expressions; some researchers argue that without a grasp of emotions, computers will never reach their full ability to assist people. MORE

Apr. 24, 2012

Dr Stefanie Brassen study in journal Science on brain activity related to regret posits that by understanding the biological mechanism behind the emotion, it may be possible to provide exercises and training in emotion regulation. MORE

Jan. 24, 2012

Human emotion of disgust, an emotion long neglected by psychologists, has become the subject of a flurry of new books and papers by scientists; evolutionary psychologists are now looking at disgust as an important and complicated adaptation to avoid disease-causing microbes and parasites that involves not only taste and smell but also sight and touch. MORE

Dec. 4, 2011

Anne Eisenberg Novelties column observes that researchers are teaching computers how to spot deception in people’s speech — using cues like loudness, changes in pitch and nervous laughs; notes programs that succeed at spotting people's submerged emotions may someday have many practical uses. MORE

Oct. 23, 2011

Many business people have begun to use emoticons in their email correspondence as way to ensure that their tone is not misconstrued; others deplore these whimsical signifiers as lazy and unprofessional. MORE